


Hush

by squintly



Series: Iteration [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Anal Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, GWD!Clint, M/M, Oral Sex, Possibly Dubious Consent, manual sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 07:03:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squintly/pseuds/squintly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barton helps Loki break out of a rut and conquer the world. Loki thanks him for it.</p>
<p>A stand-alone part of the Iteration 'verse, occurring post-Beginnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hush

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that Clint is heartwashed throughout the story, calling his ability to consent into question. If it makes you feel any better if he'd been knocked over the head half way through he would have done the same thing, just considerably more violently.

The first time they fuck the world is crumbling around them.

It was Barton’s idea. It seemed so obvious, after the fact. Iron Man stopped the missile by sending it through one door—why not just send it through another? 

After all of Loki’s planning and plotting, after _years_ lived one week at a time, it’s _that easy_.

The tiny trail of fire and smoke spirals up and through the circle of shimmering blue and into the utterly empty darkness beyond, and Loki is _on_ him. One hand in his hair, pulling his head back, the other halfway between wrapping around his exposed throat and cradling his cheek, body crushing him up against the sturdy glass of Stark’s window. Barton’s pulse throbs beneath his thumb and Loki’s pounds in his ears, so loud, so fast, it almost drowns out the world ending outside. 

“It’s done,” he whispers, breathless and gasping and unable to grin, the trembling unbelievable joy spreading inside him like a bloodstain is so great. “Because of you.”

Barton smiles. His hands drift to Loki’s hips. He has never touched the god before, never dared, but now a building collapses and someone screams and every breath they take, every beat of their hearts, is because of _him_. 

“Surprised?”

For half a heartbeat Loki pauses. Barton’s smile widens into a grin. Far, far away, a lightning bolt crackles through the air, a lightning bolt that shouldn’t be. 

“No,” Loki replies, and that surprises him all on its own. 

He doesn’t intend to kiss Barton. He leans forward, or Barton does, or they both do, and they collide, more teeth than lip. Barton is warm and Barton is firm and Barton tastes like blood and sweat and the smoke from the burning city beyond. Tastes a man. A _warrior_. And Barton is _his_ , every last inch of him.

All but one.

And that inch is almost gone. 

It’s the time. Three days out of every four they work together, _live_ together, king and commander, master and apprentice. Barton hates him for an afternoon and then the nuclear fire swoops through the city and it all begins again. Or did. And there isn’t enough. What comes through—and something _does_ come through, _has_ to, there’s no other way to explain the fading rage in Barton’s eyes or the melting professionalism or the day, the first day, that Barton shot Fury in the head without even being asked—what comes through is all _good_. It’s sharing a meal waiting for Selvig to finish his work or fighting side by side to take the Helicarrier or standing here, in this very room, watching the city come undone just as they had and waiting for the inevitable fiery end that this time, never came. 

In two years of this endless repetitive hell, Loki has whiled away more hours with Barton than he had with Thor in the entire decade previous. 

Barton’s hands rake down his back, blunt fingernails scraping over leather. Loki bites down on his soft bottom lip, heat welling but not spilling, and Barton _groans_. 

“I will give you everything,” Loki vows into the abomination of a kiss. “I will make you a _prince_.”

“Shut up,” Barton moans, and pushes him away. 

Loki might have ended him for that, if he hadn’t followed, grabbing hold of Loki’s lapel and crushing them together once more. Pushing them both backwards into the vast empty expanse of Stark’s flashy apartment, pushing his luck, sliding one hand down past Loki’s waist to grab his arse through the coat. Loki lets him. Loki lets him bite back, force the fight between their tongues out of his own mouth and into Loki’s, lets him take the lead. A reward for a job well done. 

Loki’s heel hits the first of the stupid shallow steps and he falls, bringing Barton down with him. A wave of agony washes over him as his tailbone hits the concrete, and then another as the back of his head cracks down as well. His tolerance for pain has increased drastically over the years, but it still leaves him breathless. 

Barton _takes advantage_.

Slotting himself firmly between Loki’s thighs, he looms over him, kissing away his wince and plunging in deep as the pounding gong fades. One hand, he entwines with Loki’s, pinning it above his head, and the other he slides down Loki’s side, over his hip and down to the crook of his knee, pulling up to spread Loki’s legs, take away all leverage. Not that he has any to begin with, with the uppermost step digging into the small of his back, the weight of Barton’s body pressing him into the floor. 

Too far. It’s gone too far. Loki should flip him, pin _Barton_ to the ground instead, ravish him, _take_ him, in all the ways he knows and imagines Barton wants. But Barton rolls his hips, and the pressure sends ripples all the way up his spine.

And he owes Barton every second. And he _knows_ Barton would never hurt him, can’t, so long as the electric blue sparkles in his eyes. 

And he _likes_ it.

Barton’s lips shift down to the corner of his jaw. Loki turns his face away, realizing he’s bared his throat only when Barton dips down to nip at his pulse. His heart jumps and something in his belly starts to burn.

“Careful,” he murmurs, half a groan that does nothing to deter the other man. Eggs him on, if anything, teeth scraping over his skin and tongue following the line of his tendon. Barton hikes his leg up again, and his ankle hooks around the man’s waist without any input from him, leaving him spread wide for the next long, slow roll of Barton’s hips. 

Loki’s free hand paws at Barton’s back. He doesn’t know what else to do with it. With his other lovers, the greedy power-hungry fools looking for advantage in his bed, things had always been the other way around. He was a prince of Asgard; he didn’t get held down and mounted like a dog. Didn’t let _mortals_ of all things rut against him, didn’t moan for it, arch up against the warm solid heat pressing against his rapidly swelling cock. He was supposed to be better than this.

“Barton,” he warns, in a gasp as Barton snaps his hips down again. The man must take it for encouragement, letting go of his leg to tug at the strap hanging across Loki’s chest, at his coat, trying to find a way through the layers.

“Barton,” Loki says again. Barton just groans into his skin. 

“ _Barton,_ ” Loki growls, and this time he _makes_ the man listen.

He wraps his hand around the man’s throat and _squeezes_. Barton stops, finally, one hand flying to Loki’s wrist while the other braces against the ground, trying to pull away. 

“I am not some rag-doll doxy,” Loki says. “I shan’t lie here and be taken by one.”

When he lets go, Barton jerks back, sliding down one step onto his knees. Loki expects him to look away in guilt or shame, or flush with anger at an expected prize revoked. He doesn’t.

He looks Loki in the eye. And then his gaze flickers down to the bulge between Loki’s legs.

Loki pulls his legs to his chest, in part to rise but mostly to hide away the evidence of his obvious enjoyment. Barton touches his knee—not stopping him, just touching him.

Loki looks at him. His cheeks are stained red, lips shiny and bit bruised, bright eyes darkened by pupils blown wide. Barton’s lust is obvious too, in his hurried breathing and the flick of his tongue between his lips.

“Just—“ the man starts, the finger tips just barely brushing Loki’s leg settling into a warm palm. “Let me take care of you.”

Loki has no idea what that means.

Barton comes towards him again. Loki doesn’t pull away. He isn’t sure he wants to. He isn’t sure of anything anymore, what Barton intends, what he’ll do. 

When Barton’s breath ghosts hot on his lips, the other man pauses. Waits. Loki does nothing. He isn’t sure there’s anything to do. 

Barton kisses him, and this time it’s all lip.

It feels different. There’s no fight in it, something Loki’s never experienced. Barton doesn’t try to push him down. He just leans, gradually, slowly increasing the pressure until Loki sinks back down onto the concrete of his own accord. He doesn’t settle on top of Loki again, either. He lays by Loki’s side, the only thing holding him down the arm slung over his chest to help prop Barton up. 

It’s unsettling. Even more so than before. And again, Loki finds he _likes_ it. 

“What are you doing?” he mumbles into Barton’s mouth.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Barton mumbles back.

Loki pushes him away again, and this time Barton obeys immediately. There’s no sly smirk hiding behind his eyes, no sneer tugging at the corners of his mouth or overblown heavy-handed lust tugging at his eyelids. His expression is earnest, as always, as ever, and Loki doesn’t know what to do with it.

“If you’re trying to make me a fool—“

“I’m not,” the other man says. 

Loki doesn’t respond, searching Barton’s face for signs of a lie. He finds none. After a moment, Barton leans back in, not much, just enough to make it intimate.

“Just trust me, alright?” he murmurs softly.

Loki says nothing. Barton takes that as a yes.

He starts trying to strip Loki down, but it’s impossible. His clothes are an illusion, and illusions don’t need buttons. Barton fiddles with the decorative strap, slides his hands over the smooth expanse of his armour looking for edges. Loki takes pity and magicks in a buckle, then another, until his coat slides freely off his shoulders, leaving Barton with the seamless tunic underneath.

“How the fuck do you get this off?” the man mumbles, prodding at the edges of the leather where it crosses over the chain beneath. 

“I usually just do this,” Loki replies, and drops the illusion entirely.

The response might have been humorous, in some other place at some other time. At first Barton doesn’t even dare to look. He slowly closes his eyes as if he’s afraid Loki might be offended, blush spreading from his cheeks to his ears and all the way down his throat. Then, gradually, he opens them, one at a time. 

“That’s a, uh,” he stammers, gaze fixed firmly on Loki’s collar bone. “Quite a trick.”

“The opposite, really,” Loki replies.

He makes it lilting, playful, trying to break free of this strange tip-toeing awkwardness, but Barton either doesn’t pick up on it or isn’t capable of reciprocating. Possibly both. He suddenly looks as lost as Loki feels. Save one, Loki has never felt uncomfortable in any image he’s worn, but the way Barton looks at him, or pointedly doesn’t, sends constricting self-conscious tingles up his back.

“This _was_ the notion, was it not?” Loki asks, crooking his leg to spare the man the sight of his half-hard cock and hopefully stem the crimson tide before it starts spilling out Barton’s pores.

“Well, yeah, just…” Barton starts, his eyes darting for the first time.

The man does a double take. Loki has never seen someone actually do that before. Especially not at _him_ , not like _this_ , a second glance not as his costume or his weaponry but at his… _him_. His everything. The curve of his ribs. The flat inward dip of his stomach. The blade of his hip. He watches Barton’s gaze slowly trace the curve of his thigh, down, not up, as if his knee were a more worthy point of interest than the thatch of hair and flushed flesh between his legs.

It’s flattering, and disconcerting. No-one has ever paid this much attention before.

“Barton?” Loki says quietly.

“Yeah?” he replies, equally hushed.

“Did you have something else planned, or will you just be staring at me until I get uncomfortable and leave?”

“What?” Barton startles, looking back up at his eyes and somehow flushing even deeper. “No. I mean—yeah, there’s—I don’t have a _plan_ , exactly—“

“Why does that not surprise me?” Loki drolls.

“Oh, shut up,” the other man snaps automatically. 

This feels better. Not _good_ , exactly—good would have been Barton writhing below him, cursing his name even as he came onto the concrete—but better. Loki smiles, and some of the tension drains out of Barton’s shoulders.

“I want to—” the man begins, leaning forward again. “Want to figure things out as I go along, you know? Figure out what you like.”

“Why?” Loki asks. 

Barton stares at him. The question seems sensible enough, to him.

“Because I’m not an asshole,” Barton says slowly. 

“You expect to garner favour?”

“No!” Barton balks. “Jesus, what kind of fucked up place do you come from?”

“No-one does something for nothing,” Loki replies.

“Sure they do,” Barton says. “I do it all the time.”

“Then you’re a fool.”

The words come out without his consent. Barton stares at him again, and not for the first time this day, Loki feels the gulf remaining between them stretch wide. There’s something missing, some common ground, that can never be found, no matter how long they spend in each other’s company. Loki is a god, and Barton is only a man. 

And then, again, Barton says something Loki doesn’t, can’t understand.

“No wonder you’re so sad.”

“I’m not _sad_ ,” Loki protests. 

“Okay,” Barton says in a tone that leaves no doubt about his true opinion. “Sure.”

“I am _not_ ,” Loki persists. 

“So what,” Barton begins again, going off on a different tangent. “This whole time, you’ve been wondering what’s in it for me?”

“You don’t have any alternative.”

“Because of the tesseract.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to sleep with you because of the fucking tesseract.”

Barton’s eyes are burning. He’s _angry_ , and Loki can’t understand why. 

“It’s not your fault,” Loki replies, trying to _comfort_ him, and Loki doesn’t understand that either.

Barton says nothing. At first. Then, carefully, like a man sticking his hand into the viper’s nest, he shifts, swinging his leg over Loki’s waist to straddle him. 

“Listen to me,” he says, as serious as Loki has ever heard him. “And don’t talk until I’m done. Okay?”

Hesitantly, curiously, Loki nods.

“I didn’t shoot Fury because you poked me with a magic pixie stick,” Barton says. “I shot him because he didn’t need me, and you did. _I told you not to say a fucking word._ ”

Loki’s mouth snaps shut.

“I don’t know how it was growing up in Viking land, but where I’m from, if you’re not useful you might as well be dead. For the last fifteen years, every bad guy I neutralize, ten more take his place. Today I helped you take over the fucking world.”

The man pauses, lowering his head until the tips of his hair brush feather-light across Loki’s chest. 

“Maybe you don’t get why that’s enough. That’s fine.”

He looks up again. Looks into Loki’s eyes. The expression on his face is like nothing Loki has ever seen, less emotion and more a steel door with dents in, glowing hot around the edges. 

“But don’t you ever, _ever_ say that wasn’t me,” Barton says. “I don’t care what your magic box does. _That was me_.”

This, Loki understands.

He doesn’t speak—he isn’t sure he’s allowed, quite yet—but he reaches up. Touches Barton, just the tips of his fingers, along the strong line of his jaw. Barton leans into it, and some of the glow drains away.

All Loki had ever wanted to do was matter. The power, the recognition, all of it was secondary. He just wanted to _do_ something, something no-one would ever forget about, something even Odin would have to look upon in awe. He understands _exactly_ what it’s like to be insignificant.

He’d thought he’d been rewarding Barton. Maybe Barton was trying to reward him. 

His slips his hand around the back of Barton’s neck and pulls him down. Loki does not kiss the way Barton does; he doesn’t have it in him to be so gentle. But he tries. 

Barton melts into him, breath hitching as Loki worries at his bruised lip. With his free hand, Loki takes Barton’s and guides it to his own hip. Barton latches on, pulls Loki up against him just the way Loki wants, and he gasps. 

It’s slow. And strange. Putting gentle pressure on Barton’s head until he finds the spot just below the corner of Loki’s jaw. Pushing him down to lick and nip at his collar bone, his nipples, the hollow beneath his rib cage, all the places that make Loki’s heart skip. Barton asks permission for everything, not in words but in looks, tiny touches. He looks up and waits for Loki to nod before pressing kisses to his knee, working slowly up the inside of Loki’s thigh, watching him all the while. When his breath ghosts over the rapidly heating flesh of Loki’s cock, he waits again, and again Loki nods.

Barton hasn’t done this often, Loki can tell. He tries to go too deep too fast and chokes. Loki has to thread his fingers through Barton’s hair and, instead of shoving him down and forcing his way into Barton’s throat, pulls him up. Makes him go slow. The heat of Barton’s mouth around him rises like warm water instead of fire, and the pressure building in his stomach simmers instead of burns.

Barton kisses and licks, sucks him, hard. Too hard. Loki tells him so, something he would never have done with anyone else, would never have dared. Barton doesn’t take offense or stop, or flush with shame. He just eases up until Loki smooths his hand through his hair, naturally, like this is the way things are supposed to go. 

It’s not enough. And it’s not what he wants. And normally Loki would have put up with it, would have spilled his seed into Barton’s mouth and been done with it and walked away dissatisfied, but this time he pulls Barton back up, kisses him again and starts undoing his belt. Barton strips off his tight shirt himself, toes off his shoes, but leaves Loki to undo his pants, push them down around his ankles and off.

Barton is everything he’d imagined and completely different all at the same time. The muscle he expects, already knows—it’s not as if Barton’s clothes do anything to hide it. But after his reaction to Loki’s nakedness he expects Barton to squirm, to try to hide himself. He doesn’t. It’s like Barton doesn’t care about himself at all. Like Barton doesn’t think he matters. 

He matters to Loki.

Barton lets him run his hands down his back and over the firm curve of his arse, but stops him with a soft touch to the wrist when he reaches to fist the man’s flushed cock. Loki presses on anyway. He _wants_ to touch him, wants to feel his hot smooth skin slide beneath his fingers, to feel him swell and throb. Barton shudders, breath fluttering against Loki’s chest. 

“Barton,” Loki murmurs, for no particular reason. The man looks up at him. It’s the same. Exactly the same. That moment, each and every time, when Loki presses the staff to Barton’s heart and the blackness in his eyes turns to brilliant electric blue. It’s _purpose_ and awe Loki doesn’t deserve and gratitude for something Loki hasn’t even done, not yet. Loki knows that feeling. Knows it as a lie, but one worth believing. Wants so desperately to make it true.

He releases Barton’s cock and pulls the man into another kiss with one hand, the other snagging Barton’s wrist and guiding it between his legs, harder, more urgent than before. Barton tries to wrap his fingers around Loki’s aching flesh but Loki pushes him lower. He feels the man freeze, in disbelief or shock, it doesn’t matter. Another kiss, open and breathless, melts him again, and he does what Loki wants. 

He’s only ever done this to himself. Barton’s fingers, callused and rough and unfamiliar, are so completely different the experiences barely compare. Magicking up a little oil Loki can usually take two of his own fingers with relatively little difficulty, but just the brush of Barton’s skin against the ring of muscle makes him jump. Barton looks up again and hovers on the edge of pulling away, but the roll of Loki’s hips—more enthusiastic than he had intended—convinces him otherwise. 

His first finger slides in to the first knuckle and Loki shivers. To the second, and he squirms. It’s not the sensation. He can handle that. It’s _Barton_. How slow he is. How careful. Like if he presses to hard or goes to fast Loki will shatter. It makes him feel like he very well might.

By the time Barton’s second finger slides all the way in, he can’t take it anymore.

“Barton,” he says again, too tremulous for a moan. Barton looks up at him, and Loki nods, again and again and again. Barton smiles and pulls his fingers out.

And spreads Loki’s legs. And shifts between them, hooking them up around his waist. And leans forward, and presses a kiss over Loki’s thundering heart.

Loki has been fucked before. It’s never felt this good. 

It doesn’t hurt, not at all, even though he feels stretched to bursting before Barton’s even pushed all the way in. He’s relaxed, and comfortable, not thinking about anything else, not _worrying_ , for once, about what he’s supposed to be and what he’s supposed to do. When Barton slides in to the hilt he doesn’t hold back his moan. He doesn’t _need_ to. Barton isn’t going to think less of him. Barton isn’t going to judge him, or mock him, or be disgusted by the unfettered emotion in his voice. Barton doesn’t _care_ , not like that. And in any case, Barton is moaning too, quieter, into the crook of Loki’s neck, but moaning all the same. 

They rock together for a while, just rock. And it’s enough. Until it isn’t, and Loki snaps his hips into Barton’s, urging him faster, harder. He can feel the man, deep inside, not the pain of his passing or the relief of his absence but _him_ , every hard, throbbing, glorious inch. Barton reaches between them without being asked and starts pumping Loki’s cock in time with their rhythm, but Loki doesn’t even need it. He can feel _everything_. He is _here_.

The pressure builds inside him in shuddering waves. His head pounds. The heartbeat in his ears coalesces into a singular booming silence. His fingers tingle and static swarms over his eyes. It rises and rises and rises and then it breaks through, every muscle in his body contracting, every nerve screaming, all of him, all in one place, all feeling one thing, one glorious rush that goes on, and on, and on.

And then it’s gone and he’s himself again. 

But different.

Barton judders, and Loki can feel that same rush coursing down the other man’s spine, coming out inside him, another shiver that follows the first like an aftershock. Barton collapses on top of him. Loki doesn’t blame him. His whole body feels like it’s made out of lead, slowly sinking into the sweat-slick concrete floor. 

It takes a long, long time to catch his breath.

Outside, the city has fallen. The smoke blots out the sun. The Chitauri have moved on, off into the distance where the screaming can’t echo back to Loki’s ears and ruin the perfect stillness. 

It’s his now. All of it. Every smouldering inch.

And all because of Barton.

He doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing to say. No reason to. A hand sliding through Barton’s hair to rest comfortably on the back of his neck should be more than enough. 

And if it isn’t, well…

Now they have all the time in the world.


End file.
